For a Taste of Grad School, Take Intro to Bio Chem

“Biological chemistry is like the original interdisciplinary area,” says Elizabeth Trimmer, professor of chemistry. “The students have all come from chemistry classes and biology courses, and Introduction to Biological Chemistry is the first time they’ve actually tried to synthesize a number of concepts together.”

Offered in both the spring and fall, BCM 262: Introduction to Biological Chemistry, requires Biology 251: Molecules, Cells, and Organisms and Chemistry 221: Organic Chemistry I as prerequisites. The class builds on what students have learned in their previous biology and chemistry courses to give them “a more sophisticated level of understanding,” Trimmer says. “We’re introducing students to a higher-level course than they’ve ever taken before, both in terms of the classroom material and the laboratory material.”

“The course and lab are fast-paced, because we’re pushing students to become more independent,” says Charvann Bailey, assistant professor of biology.

Teaching Students to Think Critically and Creatively

The lab section of BCM 262 is built to immerse students in high-level techniques and instrumentation that will allow them to transition to 300-level courses and independent research.

“It’s definitely not a cookie-cutter lab,” Bailey says. “During the first couple of weeks, students get practice with the techniques that they’ll use later in the course — basically, the concepts kind of build on each other.”

The lab is divided into two sections. Before the midsemester break, students work in groups to isolate and characterize a protein and perform an independent research mini-project. This work culminates in a poster session. After break, students study the remaining macromolecules of life: carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids.

“We’re trying to mimic things like they would be in graduate school,” Trimmer says. “In graduate school they’re going to be using very sophisticated equipment and carrying out data analysis, so we’re getting them to that point. It’s the first time that they are being asked to do a lot of things that they have not been asked to do before, but I think in the end they find it’s really helpful for their learning.”

Interdisciplinary Application of Knowledge

Unlike many undergraduate institutions, Grinnell gives students an opportunity to take BCM 262 in their second year rather than their third or fourth year, which is more common due to the course’s many prerequisites. This opportunity gives Grinnell students the background knowledge and laboratory skills to jump into biochemistry research a full summer earlier than many of their peers.

“Our students have a leg up because they’ve already had near-third-year–level material,” Trimmer says. “And if a student is going to major in biological chemistry, we don’t want them to wait until their senior year to take a biochemistry course.”

While Trimmer was skeptical about offering the course so early when she taught Grinnell’s first BCM 262 class in 2002, she says, “Once I got into it, I thought, this is great! This is the best way to do it!

“Students are able to really engage with the material and see how the two subjects fit together. They’re just a joy to teach, because the light bulbs come right on, so I think it’s a perfect way of teaching biological chemistry.”